Should we include timegrapher pictures when selling a watch?

I see it as another piece of information on the condition of a watch. People on this forum often demand good pictures to evaluate the condition of the watch, with good reason. They have taught themselves what to look for in the photos to determine originality, condition, etc. Timegrapher information also gives an idea of the mechanical condition of a watch. Like assessing details of a watch using pictures, it is a knowledge we are not born with and needs to be learned. I started getting interested in watches about a year ago. I knew nothing about evaluating a watch via pictures, or otherwise. I would never have bought any vintage watch without the terrific help of members on this forum. I have read literally thousands of posts and examine pictures and people's comments one them. I also learned to use a Timegrapher type instrument early on and I find it invaluable to determine the condition of a watch when I obtain it and helps determine if it needs to be serviced (by a professional). It provides a surprising rich set of information on the condition of a watch. It is also interesting to see the changes in performance after service has been done. It is an integral part of my hobby of collecting vintage watches.

Timing machine results would not be of much use for most collectors in determining if they wanted to buy a watch or not. For vintage watches in particular, the focus is more on the aesthetics and originality. The movement gets looked at for overall condition, lack of rust, consistency of parts (signs of swapped bridges for example), completeness (lack of paperclips acting as minute recorder jumpers for example)...those sorts of things.

Since many collectors will be sending a new purchase to their watchmaker for evaluation and service anyway, but if you want to put them in a sales advert, that's fine as long as you include the relevant information. Most photos I see posted are pretty useless as others have noted, because it's a watch in one position, with an unknown lift angle setting, and an unknown state of wind, with the caption "running great!" when we really have no idea. Aside from a complete disaster of a movement, I don't believe this will be particularly helpful.

Dry movements can run surprisingly well, as I illustrated in this thread:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/if-...-does-that-mean-it-doesnt-need-service.20475/

To really determine the state of the movement, timing machine results can be helpful, but visual inspection of the watch is also required.

I guess I would question the OP to ask...what is it you think these readings will prove? If it's that the watch is in good shape and doesn't need service, well we have looked at one aspect of that in my thread above with a watch that hasn't been serviced recently, but what about one that has? This is a watch I received not long ago that had been bought "running well" from a vintage seller with a spotty reputation, and sure enough it stopped not long after it was received. The new owner took it to another watchmaker, and it was given a "full service" for not a small amount of money. It was then sent to me because the owner had concerns about what was done.

When I fully wound the watch and put it on my timing machine, balance amplitudes dial up and dial down were over 300 degrees, and vertical were also fine. Delta was within Omega specs, and it actually looked from the timing results that the job had been done well...but then I opened it up...

Under the microscope, the true state of the movement became more clear. First the movement had various fibers scattered throughout:



Cap jewel oiling is insufficient:



More debris and a completely dry jewel:



Residue in jewel oil well, and if you look "through" the jewel you can see excess oil on the pinion of the wheel below - so the previous jewel was completely dry, and this one was over oiled:



Other cap jewel better, but still under oiled:



And this is just unacceptable - oil all over the pallet fork jewels, so over oiled and done very sloppily:



So seeing all this makes the timing machine results moot. I disassembled the watch and cleaned/inspected the parts, and found more problems, like the wear on the center or great wheel:



Worn pivot:



Wear on the barrel arbor:



Slight wear on another pivot:



Worn automatic bushing:



So I replaced some parts, and those that were discontinued and had more minor wear, I polished the pivots. And of course I oiled the watch properly. So here I've shown 2 cases in the thread I linked to and with these photos, that timing machine results are not going to tell you the full story. There is a common logical fallacy on watch forums about timing and movement condition - it concludes that if a watch needing service runs poorly, it must follow that if my watch does not run poorly, it does not need service. While seriously bad timing or a sudden change can certainly indicate that there is a problem, the absence of bad timing or poor readings on the machine doesn't necessarily indicate that everything is fine.

I do recall one seller on here showing timing machine readings, and making the claim that the movement was "running to Omega specs" but it was clear he had no idea how to use the machine, and the result was that the watch ran very poorly when the new owner received it. Result from that and other movement problems was the watch being sent back...

Just my $0.02

Cheers, Al